The present invention relates to registration forms generated by a commercial organization, such as a hotel or motel, during the registration process. FIGS. 1A-C illustrate various printed materials presented to a registering hotel guest during a typical registration process. FIG. 1A shows an example currently-used hotel registration form. The hotel registration form is typically printed on dot matrix printers using pre-printed continuous business forms. The dot matrix printer may essentially be dedicated to printing registration forms or, alternatively, registration forms may need to be loaded into the dot matrix printer prior to printing a registration form for a guest. Dot matrix printers are slow and noisy, and the process is relatively expensive. The registration form typically includes a signature line 101 on which the guest signs the guest's name after reading various terms, conditions, and may include other information printed in a text block 102 on the registration form. Information particular to a guest, such as check-in and check-out dates, method of payment, room rates, room number, and other such information may be printed in an information block 103 on the registration form. Alternatively, and commonly, the information particular to a guest may be printed in text block 102, and block 103 may be used for imprinting the guest's credit card or detailing other methods of payment. It should be noted that the types and locations of information printed on the registration form and key packet may vary from one commercial organization to another, and that the registration form and key packet shown in FIGS. 1A-C, and in subsequent figures, are merely examples, and are not intended to show a standard placement or configuration of printed subject matter included in either a registration form or key packet.
When a guest has completed the registration form, the guest is typically provided with a key packet containing a magnetic keycard. FIG. 1B shows a typical key packet as presented to a guest during the registration process. The key packet 110 is normally pre-printed and pre-folded, and includes printed lines 112-113 on which a clerk handling the registration process fills in the room number and guest's name by hand. FIG. 1C shows a typical key packet opened to display the magnetic keycard. As shown in FIG. 1C, a key packet may typically contain additional pre-printed information 115 as well as a glued magnetic keycard pocket 116 into which a magnet keycard 117 is inserted manually by the hotel clerk. The pre-printed key packets are relatively expensive, and handwriting of the guest's name and room number by the hotel clerk adds additional time and potential errors to the registration process. Moreover, because the key packets are pre-printed, key packets are not a flexible medium for presenting time-sensitive and frequently changing information. For example, the key packet shown in FIG. 1C was printed with an advertisement featuring a particular price 118 which has been manually crossed out, and below which a more current price 119 has been manually written by a hotel clerk or another hotel employee. This same lack of flexibility is also characteristic of pre-printed registration forms, such as the registration form shown in FIG. 1A.
Thus, the forms and key packets currently provided to hotel and motel guests during the registration process, and to other types of registrees during other types of registration processes, are relatively expensive, time-consuming to process, and characteristically inflexible media for presentation of information to the registree. For these reasons, hotels and motels, and other commercial organizations that typically carry out registration processes with customers, have recognized the need for a more simple, less expensive, and more flexible method for providing registration forms, key packets, and other types of printed information to registrees.